The US has urged Azerbaijan to protect civilians and allow in aid, while in Baku, hungry and fatigued Armenian people clogged roadways as they fled their homes in the vanquished breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
This week, Azerbaijan’s military launched a fast military offensive that quickly routed the forces of the Armenians of Karabakh, a region of Azerbaijan that Baku has not controlled since the fall of the Soviet Union.
On the first day of the evacuation, at least 13,550 of the 120,000 ethnic Armenians who call Nagorno-Karabakh home arrived in Armenia, with hundreds of automobiles and buses snaking down the mountain road out of Azerbaijan, laden to the gills with personal items.
Some others rode away on tractors, and others fled in the back of open-topped trucks. Narine Shakaryan, a grandmother of four, drove up in her daughter-in-law’s beat-up automobile. It took her 24 hours to drive the 77 kilometres, she added. They were starving.
“The whole way the children were crying, they were hungry,” Shakaryan told Reuters at the border, clutching her 3-year-old granddaughter who she said had grown ill during the trek.
We fled for survival, not for enjoyment of life.
Azerbaijani liras Karabakh as major power concerns over a possible war escalate
Armenians frantically bought petrol as they fled the Karabakh capital, Stepanakert (in Armenian) or Khankendi (in Azerbaijani). On Monday, a petroleum storage facility exploded, causing a major fire that authorities said killed at least 20 people and injured 290 more.
In Yerevan, Armenia, USAID Administrator Samantha Power urged Azerbaijan “to maintain the ceasefire and take concrete steps to protect the rights of civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh.”
After delivering a letter of support from U.S. Vice President Joe Biden to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Power declared that Azerbaijan’s use of force was wrong and that the United States was considering a suitable reaction.
She demanded that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev keep his word to safeguard the rights of the country’s ethnic Armenian minority, restore the Lachin corridor that links the area to Armenia, and let in relief deliveries and an international monitoring mission.
Aliyev has promised to protect Karabakh’s Armenians and that his iron fist had put any hope of independence for the territory in the past.
With nowhere to turn
Armenians of other ethnicities who made it to the country described their terrifying journeys to safety.
One witness even claimed to have seen “truckloads” of dead civilians. Others, including several with young children, sobbed as they recounted a heartbreaking adventure of fleeing fighting, sleeping on the ground, and hunger.
We grabbed everything we could and ran. The destination is unknown to us. A 69-year-old taxi driver named Petya Grigoryan told Reuters on Sunday in the border town of Goris, “We have nowhere to go.”
Reuters was unable to confirm reports of the military operation on the ground in Karabakh independently. Azerbaijan claims it solely attacked Karabakh separatists.
Power of USAID predicted that the world would soon learn more about the dire circumstances in Karabakh and the experiences that caused people to escape.
Equilibrium of Forces
The Azerbaijani triumph shifts the power dynamic in the South Caucasus, an area of diverse ethnicities and oil and gas pipelines where Russia, the US, Turkey, and Iran are all vying for control.
After the Soviet Union’s collapse, Armenia forged a security alliance with Russia, while Azerbaijan drew close to Turkey due to their shared language and culture.
Armenia blames Russia for the failure to safeguard Karabakh since Russia had peacekeepers there but they are now focused on the war in Ukraine. Russia has publicly denied any responsibility and warned Pashinyan against furthering ties with the United States.
On Monday, Aliyev suggested the possibility of opening a land corridor through Armenia to Turkey.
Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov requested that the US government cease its efforts to sow anti-Russian sentiment in Armenia.
